Everything Different, Everything the Same
by Xx The Grey Lady xX
Summary: He's pretty sure his parents were lying to him about being a girl anyway. FtMTrans!Kida/Mikado for the kink meme. Ongoing.
1. Prologue

A/N: Hello, and welcome to Everything Different, Everything the Same! This fic is in response to a request on the kink meme for Kida as a trans man, and I'm finally getting around to posting it here. It was originally posted on the kink meme and because of that the parts are quite short, but I like the way they're separated and I don't want to combine them. So instead I'm just going to post two at a time after the prologue so the chapters aren't TOO short. Thank you for reading, and I hope you all find that the fic is handled with appropriate sensitivity and respect for the issues at hand. :)

Disclaimer: _Durarara!_ is copyright Ryohgo Narita.

_Prologue_

Because they are in elementary school and uniforms are required, Masami-chan comes to school the same way every day: in the girls' sailor uniform with her dark hair in pigtails and a bright grin when she greets him on the front steps of the school. So Mikado is surprised when she arrives today in a boys' uniform with her hair all cut off, scowling.

"…Masami-chan?"

"Morning, Mikado-kun," Masami-chan grumbles, pulling him into the school building by the hand.

"Why are you wearing a boys uniform?"

"_Because_, Mikado, I don't _like _being a girl! And when I told my mom that and said I just wanted to wear the boys' uniform for _one day, _she just got SO MAD and said I had to wear the 'proper' uniform—" Masami-chan walks faster, stomping her feet with every step, and Mikado almost has to jog to keep up. "So I got the scissors when she wasn't paying attention and cut my stupid long hair off like I've wanted to do for _years, _because I just didn't care anymore, you know? And then she threw a fit and said if I wanted to go to school looking like a freak I could." Momentarily distracted from her anger, Masami-chan grins triumphantly.

There are many confused questions swirling around in Mikado's brain, like where Masami-chan even got a boys' uniform in the first place, but he finally settles on what seems like the most important thing to ask. "Do you… like it better?"

"Yeah! It's way better than wearing stupid skirts." Masami-chan scowls. "So, from this day on, I've decided that I'm now a boy."

"But… no you're not, Masami-chan. You can't just become a boy, you're a girl. Right?"

"Not right!" Masami-chan turns so she is standing in front of him, glaring. "I don't want to be a girl anymore. I don't _feel _like a girl. I don't think I ever was a girl. I think my parents must have lied to me or something. So I'm a boy. Get it straight!"

"O-okay." Mikado blinks at his best friend, who, with short hair and mischief in her eyes and a hard set to her jaw, looks for all the world like this is how she was always meant to be. "Then… let's go to class, Kida-kun."

She—_he, _Mikado corrects himself—blinks, then smiles wide. "Yeah!"

—

A month later, Kida-kun is gone, moved by his parents to Tokyo—Ikebukuro, specifically—and Mikado locks himself in his bedroom for days, leaving only for bathroom breaks. His parents let him miss a week of school and surprise him on Friday with the thing that would, for the next three years, consume him: a computer.

—

_High schoooool! Can you believe it, Mi~ka~do~! How we've matured~ We're men now!_

Mikado chuckles, shaking his head at the email. _Maybe _you've_ matured, living in the big city, _he types back, then hits send.

Kida replies moments later. _Well, if you're worried about your growth as a man, you should come to the big city too!_

Mikado stares at the screen for a full minute before he decides that Kida must be joking. _Very funny, Kida-kun._

_I'm serious! _comes the reply. _You should come to Raira with me! You'd get in easy, you're so smart, and you could tell your parents you want a better chance of getting into a good university or something._

…_I'll talk to them, _Mikado promises, and he does.

—

The train ride to Ikebukuro is nothing if not surreal. Mikado feels as if he is coming for a daytrip—not that he knows what it feels like to go on a daytrip—but coming here to live? To go to school? To start his own life, live on his own when he's only a freshman in high school?

It's crazy. It's completely illogical. How did he let Kida-kun talk him into this?

The train pulls in, and when Mikado runs into a stranger approximately ten seconds after stepping onto the platform, all he can think is that he wants to go home.

Then he finds Kida-kun—or, rather, Kida-kun finds him—and things fall into place, the world rights itself from where it's been off-kilter since Mikado was left alone in Saitama.

Still, he can't really believe his eyes. This person has dyed blonde hair and a flat chest that Mikado assumes must be bound down. This person's voice is deeper than Mikado's own as he draws Mikado's name in a way that is both familiar and different.

"Kida-kun?" Mikado says uncertainly.

"Aha~ You doubt me? Then I'll give you three possible answers! One: Kida Masaomi. Two: Kida Masaomi. Or three: Kida Masaomi!"

_Masaomi? _Mikado thinks. But then he understands.


	2. Parts 1 and 2

_Part 1_

Masaomi's parents told their neighbors that they were moving because his father's job was relocated, but Masaomi isn't stupid. He knows why they moved. They thought it might change something. Thought it might make him want to be a girl if he was surrounded by Tokyo's bustling, glamorous environment—glamorous compared to Saitama, anyway.

He hates it, at first. He hates the idea of not seeing Mikado. He hates that he's the _reason _he won't see Mikado. He hates when his parents introduce him to the new neighbors as "Our daughter, Masami."

He hates everything about Ikebukuro for about three weeks, before the sights and the sounds and the places and the people—God, the _people;_ the sheer number of them is enough to make his head spin—dazzle him.

If anything, though, Tokyo makes him more certain than ever that the last thing he wants to be is a girl. Because what he finds here is tolerance.

The people he meets know he's technically female. They know because his voice is too high and his hips too wide and his lips too full. The know because he's met them walking to school before in his stupid _stupid _girls' uniform, with the too-short skirt he constantly pulls down and the jacket that tapers at his hips in a way that just makes them look more feminine. But when he sees them on the streets at night in jeans and a baggy white hoodie, hands deep in his pockets, they greet him as Kida-kun, and it feels _right._

It isn't long before his parents stop caring altogether, because after they have the same fight with him a million times, they give him up as a lost cause. It hurts, more than he allows himself to acknowledge, but in the end he realizes it's a good thing. Parents who don't care mean no one yelling at him for wearing a boys' uniform to school besides "concerned" school officials and later nights with his friends who treat him like one of the guys.

The Yellow Scarves start sort of by accident, when Masaomi decides wearing a scarf might distract from his ever-growing chest, and his friends just follow suit. He finds he likes it, leadership. Likes the power, the feel of controlling his own destiny. The older ones teach him how to fight, and before long he can kick all their asses easily.

He likes that, too. Strength. The stronger he gets, the less girly he feels. Being strong lets him protect what he needs to protect—his gang, himself, his identity.

Meeting Saki is terrifying and wonderful all at once. He's constantly afraid she'll figure him out and dump him on the spot, but how _new _everything is never fails to leave him a little awed. He's been so preoccupied since puberty with not _being _a girl that he hasn't given much thought to whether he likes them or not.

After his first kiss with Saki, he decides he does. But then he doesn't know what that makes him, or if it even matters. He's not gay or—or a lesbian, because he's not a girl, not mentally at least. Maybe he's straight, but then he hasn't considered whether he likes guys too or…

Eventually it stops mattering. Labels are stupid anyway. Labels are why he spent the first thirteen years of his life as Kida Masami.

_Part 2_

When he meets Orihara Izaya, Masaomi is instantly aware that the older man has seen right through him. Izaya, he quickly learns, has a way of looking at people like he's seeing right into their head, and it's _scary. _Scary because he's pretty sure Izaya would tell Saki without a second thought if the urge struck him. But Saki worships Izaya, and in a few short months he's done wonders for the Yellow Scarves.

Masaomi decides, after seeing all the things Izaya has done, that there's probably very little he _can't _do—and he's happy to do it for just about anyone, if he thinks they can give him something in return. So he's not surprised, exactly, when Izaya approaches him one day after a meeting at the Yellow Scarves' warehouse.

"You're not on hormones, right?" he asks casually. "Testosterone, that is."

Masaomi eyes him warily. "No."

"Would you like to be?"

_Yes, _Masaomi thinks. Of course he would. It's all he's wanted since he did enough research online to know it was possible. But he holds his tongue, says instead, "What's in it for you?"

"Masaomi-kun, please. Haven't I proven myself a benefactor? I'm assuming that you don't have access to them—which leads me to believe your parents don't support your decision or at least want you to wait until you're older, but if you know anything about them you know they're more effective the younger you take them, ne?"

The opportunity, he decides, is too good to pass up, even if Masaomi doesn't trust the guy for a second. Because getting on hormones at the risk of owing something to Orihara Izaya is better than not having them at all.

He hopes, anyway.

—

Saki is in the hospital with two broken legs and Kida still gets the same package in the mail, the usual syringe and glass bottle secured in a tiny box filled with tissue paper. Like nothing has changed—when everything has.

Saki is in the hospital with two broken legs and it's _his _fault. For being too scared to save her, and that has nothing to do with being a boy or a girl. It just has to do with strength. Strength he didn't have.

And Izaya—that conniving bastard—had a hand in it. Of course. Saki wouldn't be in the hospital right now if Izaya didn't want her to be. He wanted to watch them suffer.

Yet that package still arrived in the mail, and when Masaomi opens it he almost throws it across the room he's so angry. That Izaya still expects him to accept this, after everything…

Kida stares at the box, can't bring himself to throw it away, and he hates himself for playing into Izaya's hands.

This is still better than going back to the way things were.


	3. Parts 3 and 4

_Part 3_

For the first few weeks, Mikado must constantly remind himself that the how and the what and the why are not his business and not important, as long as Kida-kun has gotten to a place where's he's happy with who he is. But even though he knows this, it is very difficult to quash his curiosity.

The idea that Kida-kun might get angry is almost enough to turn him off talking about it, but somehow—somehow he thinks it'll be okay. Because as far as he knows Kida-kun's never had someone to talk to about this, and even if Mikado doesn't exactly understand, he wants to try.

He has no idea, though, _what _to ask. He doesn't think asking for a detailed account of the past three years would be a good idea, and he also doesn't want to offend Kida-kun. Then again, maybe Kida-kun would be glad to know Mikado is still surprised every time he sees him by how well he passes as a boy…?

It's difficult and really sort of scary to ask about, but he does anyway, one afternoon as they sit in the park, ice cream dripping onto their hands as the sun beats down.

"Kida-kun?" Mikado begins uncertainly.

Kida-kun doesn't reply at first, too busy licking a trail of melted chocolate from his hand, and Mikado watches, mouth dry. "Hm? What is it, Mikado?"

"I've sort of… I've been wanting to ask you about…" Mikado pauses, shifts uncomfortably. "I mean, you probably don't want to talk about it, but in case you did I just… wanted you to know that you can talk to me. Or not. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

Kida blinks at him for a moment, then laughs. "Mikado. It's okay. Calm down."

"I'm sorry," Mikado says again.

"Don't be sorry. What do you want to know?"

"Um. Well—how… how did you get—your parents and the school and everything to agree to let you… um… wear the boys' uniform and… everything else?"

"Ah, well." Kida-kun grins easily. "I don't know if you can handle the level of intrigue involved in that, Mikado~ As for my parents—they don't really care anymore. It's less hassle for them if they let me do what I want."

"O-oh."

Mikado remembers their years in Saitama together. He can count on one hand the number of times he visited the Kida residence; normally Kida-kun—Masami-chan, then—would visit his house. He remembers the late-night calls he'd get, sometimes, when Masami-chan's voice would quiver as she told Mikado to "just talk to me about something."

"Anything else?" Kida-kun presses, and Mikado is a little amazed by how unaffected his best friend seems.

"I… well… I just want to say—even knowing, I mean, I can't tell at all."

Kida-kun laughs again. "Ah, yes, I am the very picture of masculinity, ne? The many wonders of hormones~"

"…Hormones?"

"Hormone replacement therapy. You know, testosterone injections. It's really cool, actually, they do so much stuff—make your voice deeper and stuff. _And _I don't—you know—cycle."

"C-cycle?"

"Honestly, Mikado, how do you ever expect to get a girlfriend? Cycle. Periods."

Oh. _Oh. _Mikado flushes.

"All you can do is hope sweet Anri-chan finds your naïveté endearing. _I _certainly don't." Kida-kun thumps him on the back in a friendly way, and Mikado doesn't bother correcting him about Sonohara, who is probably perfect except that she's nothing like Kida-kun.

_Part 4_

"You can call me Masaomi, you know," Kida-kun says, offhand, one day as they walk home from school. Sonohara-san left them early today, saying she had something to do, and so for the past ten minutes Mikado has been relatively silent while Kida-kun regales him with tales of his various flops with girls.

Then, after making one bad joke or another that Mikado laughed at anyway, Kida-kun paused and looked at him curiously and said, "You can call me Masaomi, you know," and Mikado isn't sure how to respond.

He went from Masami-chan to Kida-kun, back then, as a subtle way to tell his best friend that he supported Kida-kun's decision about being a boy. It feels like undermining that to call him something else, but then again, this is different. This is the name Kida-kun has chosen for his new self. And that… that probably makes it even better than "Kida-kun."

"Masaomi," he says tentatively, and Kida-kun's grin is brighter than the lights of the city.

—

Mikado isn't stupid, and he knows the fact that his heart beats harder when Masaomi walks into a room—or just when he thinks about laughing brown eyes and a Cheshire grin—means something. He knows what these feelings are, different and stronger than anything he's ever felt for Sonohara-san.

That doesn't mean, though, that he knows what to do about them. There's nothing familiar about this situation. With Sonohara-san, things were simpler. But Masaomi is a boy, which he's sure his parents would never approve of—and more than that, Masaomi is a special _kind_ of boy. He has no idea—what's okay to do, to touch, to say.

He has no idea if Masaomi returns his feelings. If he's interested in guys in the first place. Doesn't seem like it, with all the skirt-chasing he does, but…

He watches carefully and researches on the internet, which isn't exactly helpful because it tells him that some trans people are more okay with their bodies than others, it's different for everyone, and he can't _ask _Masaomi about what he feels comfortable with because that would be really awkward and impolite, wouldn't it? Besides, it's not his business, no matter how much he wants it to be.

Masaomi probably doesn't even know, anyway. As far as Mikado knows, at least, he's never had the opportunity to find out.

Some nights—most nights—Mikado curls around himself on his futon and imagines what it would be like to _help _Masaomi find out.

—

Soon, it stops mattering, really. Soon he's holding Masaomi close in a warehouse as blood flows freely from his best friend's forehead. Soon Masaomi leaves Ikebukuro, and they only talk through screen names in a chat room.

It hurts to know Masaomi is with Saki, a little, and he chides himself for being upset over unrequited love—worse, though, is that Mikado feels like he's lost his best friend.


	4. Parts 5 and 6

_Part 5_

The first few days of Masaomi's absence are reminiscent in a horrible sort of way of when he left Saitama. At first, Mikado just feels hollow. Like everything that at one time made him happy has been sucked into a black hole in outer space.

That, he thinks pathetically, is how far away hope feels. Like it's spun off out of the Milky Way and into another galaxy—unreachable, unfathomably distant.

Masaomi is… essential to him. Mikado can't even remember the last time he went a day without seeing him before Masaomi left Ikebukuro. To suddenly lose someone who was such a permanent fixture in his life… but this time around, it's a hundred times worse because it's already happened once.

As weeks pass, it gets easier, sort of. At least, Mikado decides that he's going to attempt to stop feeling sorry for himself and move on. Romantically, anyway. Masaomi _was _always trying to push him and Sonohara-san together, and… it's not like he's not attracted to her.

He's not telling the truth, exactly, when he rambles on television about wanting to be with her, but he's not lying either.

—

Saki knows. Maybe she always has. Maybe Izaya told her. Masaomi doesn't know and he doesn't ask—it doesn't matter, really, because she tells him very quickly and matter-of-factly that she doesn't care.

"Masaomi is Masaomi," she says simply and kisses him.

—

He loves her, sort of. Things have changed, in a way, since they were fifteen and all the danger in their lives was a joke, a game. His guilt weighs on him, but so does Saki's on her. At first he thinks that's enough to make it work.

Seeing Mikado again, if only from a distance, proves him wrong.

—

Ikebukuro has gone mad. It was wild before, uncontained and ever-changing and surprising, but now—now it has gone mad.

Kuronuma Aoba has Mikado in the palm of his hand, and Mikado does things he wants to forget but can't. He can see himself spiraling, losing himself in late nights and blood that is not his and dreams of a tongue darting out to lick chocolate from sticky fingers under a hot sun.

It is not until Masaomi returns to Ikebukuro that Mikado returns to himself.

_Part 6_

The first place Masaomi goes, the first place he knows he has to go, is Mikado's apartment. It is exactly as he remembers it, from the outside—and when he knocks on the door and Mikado opens it, the wide-eyed expression on his best friend's face is just as familiar.

"It was messed up," Masaomi says, quiet as he wraps his arms around Mikado. Nothing has felt this right in a long time. There is a weight he's never fully realized was there that lifts off his shoulders when Mikado hugs him back, hesitant but then latching onto him like a vice, like he can't believe Masaomi is really here.

"What—" Mikado's voice is hoarse; he pauses, clears his throat. "What was messed up?"

"…Everything." Masaomi laughs, hollow. "I… I shouldn't have left. It was stupid."

"It wasn't stupid," Mikado insists. "Come inside."

Masaomi nods, follows Mikado into the apartment. Mikado turns to him, and they stand in the middle of the tiny room, watching each other for a long moment.

"I left," Masaomi says, looking at the floor, "because I didn't want to lose you."

Mikado doesn't bother to point out that this makes no sense, which is fine because Masaomi is fully aware of it. "I thought—I thought it was safer. I didn't want to go on with you and Anri knowing you knew everything. I thought it would ruin us."

Mikado shakes his head. His eyes are hard as he looks at Masaomi. "Nothing could do that."

Masaomi doesn't reply, at first, just continues to look anywhere but at Mikado. Finally, his eyes settle on the wall just above Mikado's left shoulder.

"Saki and I broke up," he says.

"Oh." In his peripheral vision, Masaomi sees Mikado shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "I'm sorry."

Masaomi shrugs.

"Do you…" Mikado trails off, and despite himself Masaomi meets his eyes curiously, fascinated by the way Mikado flushes to the tips of his ears. "Wh-why?"

"Why did we break up?"

Mikado nods.

"…It was messed up, like I said. With everything that's happened, it just…"

Mikado nods, and there is a question in his eyes that Masaomi thinks he understands.

"It wasn't because of... She knew, and she was fine with it. It was everything else that didn't work out."

"Yeah," Mikado says uncertainly. "Are you… okay?"

"Actually… yeah. We make better friends anyway."

The smile on Mikado's lips is intriguing in a way Masaomi can't quite place but dearly wants to understand.

"I'll make tea," Mikado announces, and suddenly the smile is gone as he disappears into his kitchen.


	5. Parts 7 and 8

_Part 7_

Masaomi hangs back in the narrow space that separates the kitchen from the main room. Mikado presses a mug into his hands, chewing his lower lip uncertainly.

"I'm glad you came back," he says.

"Me too."

They take seats on Mikado's futon, sitting cross-legged, facing each other. Something about this is different from the way it used to be, a little awkward, too many words between them that need to be said but that Masaomi just wants to forget.

"Are you moving back in with your parents?" Mikado asks.

Masaomi opens his mouth, closes it again. "Actually, I… didn't think about that." He laughs weakly. "There's no way my parents will let me stay with them, not after this."

"Well, you… you could stay with me." At Masaomi's blinking, surprised look, Mikado continues quickly, "I know it's really small and not in the best part of town and everything, but—"

"Shut up, Mikado," Masaomi says, laughing. "Why wouldn't I want to stay here? It'll be like having a sleepover every night except we'll probably want to kill each other after a while." He grins, and Mikado breathes a relieved sigh.

"This is way smarter than me getting an apartment," Masaomi says, putting his empting mug aside and leaning back to lay on the futon, arms stretched up to cushion his head. "Halves the costs for both of us."

Mikado nods. "There just… well, there won't be much privacy…"

Masaomi blinks, grins. "Aw, is Mikado worried about me seeing him without clothes on~?"

The implications of this question are ones which Mikado does not want to consider. Nor does he want to think about his answer to it, because no, he's _not _worried about Masaomi seeing him naked—quite the opposite, really.

"No," he says, flushing and looking away. Even after a year and a half, he's not sure how much he's allowed to talk about _it, _or if there is a limit. "I just—I just thought _you _might… be uncomfortable…"

A pause. "Oh." Masaomi shrugs. "Well, that's what the bathroom's for. Besides, if there's anyone I'd be okay with… seeing me… it'd be you."

"Oh." Mikado's stomach has twisted itself into knots. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, I trust you more than anybody, I know you wouldn't… freak out or whatever. Not like there's much to see anyway, I don't have boobs at all."

"…You don't?"

"Nah. Started the hormones early enough to avoid that, but I don't think they would've gotten big either way."

"Good."

Masaomi's lips quirk into a half-smile. "Yeah. I got really lucky. No worries, though, I'm not gonna randomly strip down all the time or anything. Unless you want me to."

It is a joke. Everything about it is obviously a joke, from the hint of laughter in Masaomi's voice to the exaggerated wink he gives Mikado as he says it. He does not mean it. He will not actually strip in the apartment if Mikado wants him to, and he probably—definitely—doesn't expect Mikado to want him to anyway.

Even knowing this, though, Mikado can't help himself as he says, mouth dry, "Maybe I _do._"

_Part 8_

"Ooh, so Mikado has developed a naughty sense of humor in my absence?" Masaomi grins, taps his nose. "How interesting~ Have you told any dirty jokes to Anri-chan? I bet she would get the cutest blush~!"

"I'm serious." Mikado's hands fidget in his lap, but he looks at Masaomi with determination in his eyes. "Not—not so much about the stripping, necessarily—not that I _don't _want you to—I'm not doing this right, am I?"

"If you're going for an epic love confession, then I'd say no."

Mikado isn't sure how to take this; Masaomi's expression is unreadable. So he tries again. "Will you go out with me?"

Here, Masaomi bursts into laughter. "You are such a dork! It's totally obvious you've never asked a girl out in your life."

"Sh-shut up!"

Masaomi shakes his head, still grinning. "No wonder you haven't nabbed Anri yet. Clearly you weren't paying attention to all my lessons."

"But I don't _want _to date Sonohara-san," Mikado says. "I… I want you. I always have."

At this, Masaomi frowns—it's not angry or upset, exactly, just… confused, maybe. "Always, huh?"

Mikado nods, hesitant.

"When we were kids, too?"

"Yes."

Masaomi bites his lip. "Is it because I'm a girl?"

"Wh-_what?_" Mikado splutters. "What are you talking about?"

"Is that why you're attracted to me? Because I'm a girl?"

"You're _not _a girl," Mikado says. "Masaomi—"

"I'm _female. _Lacking a Y chromosome and all. You know that and you knew me before I…"

"That doesn't make _sense,_" Mikado says, putting his hands on Masaomi's shoulders. "Masaomi, I like you _now _and you don't look the least bit like a girl. I don't care what you look like or what gender you are or used to be or anything—I just want Masaomi. It made me happy when you said you don't have…" Mikado waves a hand in the direction of Masaomi's chest. "Because that meant that you were closer than I thought to having the body you want to have. I just want you to be happy with who you are, and that's as a boy, so that's the Masaomi I want."

Masaomi stares at him for a long moment, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "That," he says, "was a proper epic love confession."


End file.
